Louis Molpske, Portage County district attorney / submitted photo

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Accused of raping a woman at a Stevens Point motel, Dennis M. Jones was charged in December 2007 with three felonies that carry a maximum of 59 years in prison.

But Jones fled to Texas, and he has remained there despite repeated run-ins with the law — the latest of which had him behind bars in mid-February. A Wisconsin warrant for his arrest was never entered into an FBI database that law enforcement nationwide uses to track fugitives, so Texas authorities were never alerted to the rape case.

Jones is among hundreds of Wisconsin fugitives who avoided prosecution by merely crossing state lines, according to data reviewed by the Gannett Wisconsin Media Investigative Team and USA TODAY.

Warrants for some serious crimes in Wisconsin aren’t entered into the FBI database, while others are entered but don’t authorize police elsewhere to hold the suspect for extradition — the process of retrieving a prisoner from another state.

The FBI database — known as the National Crime Information Center — is the only way police learn of warrants from other states unless they contact that agency directly. Officers run names through the database when they pull over a vehicle or arrest someone, and it provides an immediate “hit” if a warrant is listed.

The database lists 8,802 warrants in Wisconsin from more than 100 law enforcement agencies, based on a copy of the database released to USA TODAY in May 2013. Of those, 499 warrants indicate police will not travel to other states to pick up the offender, and 937 others indicate police will only go to surrounding states. The database also includes about 1,200 warrants for which no extradition status is listed and 6,000 that allow nationwide extradition.

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Wisconsin authorities are more willing to extradite than most, the database shows. Nationwide, about 16 percent of the warrants in the FBI database allow no out-of-state extradition. In Wisconsin less than 6 percent of warrants are non-extraditable.

No Wisconsin warrants for violent offenses — such as murder or aggravated assault — are listed as non-extraditable, but 57 warrants for sex-related crimes allow no extradition. Warrants extraditable only in surrounding states include a2008 Lafayette County homicide, an aggravated assault in Waushara County and sexual assaults in Brown, Marathon, Waupaca and Winnebago counties.

But many other warrants — as in Jones’ case — are left out of the database.

DA says Jones' warrant will be fixed

Gannett Wisconsin Media discovered Jones’ warrant by comparing the FBI database to warrant listings that several Wisconsin sheriff’s departments post online. That comparison revealed serious offenses, such as sexual assault, are sometimes listed on local websites, but not in the FBI database due to extradition limits.

Jones, 32, is charged with two counts of second-degree sexual assault with use of force and one count of false imprisonment stemming from a Dec. 7, 2007, incident at Point Motel, court records show. According to the criminal complaint, Jones forced a woman into a laundry room and sexually assaulted her until she was able to flee. The alleged victim and a friend of hers identified Jones as the suspect.

Since leaving Wisconsin, Jones has done anything but lay low.

Online court records for Dallas County, Texas, list six convictions since 2009 — including multiple assaults, burglary and trespassing. Jones was last in jail Feb. 12, when he was released after serving two weeks for unpaid tickets, said Detective Raul Reyna of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department.

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When alerted to Jones’ absence from the FBI’s fugitive database, Portage County District Attorney Louis Molepske said the warrant would be updated to ensure police in other states detain Jones for prosecution in Wisconsin the next time he has contact with police.

“This is the type of person that absolutely we want back in Portage County to face these charges and to address … what he did to the victim and the community,” said Molepske, who was elected in 2012 and was not part of the decision to limit the initial warrant.

The same scenario played out in three child sexual assault cases from 2006to2008 in Manitowoc County and one from 2011 in Fond du Lac County. In each case, warrants were issued with no extradition outside Wisconsin and were not entered into the FBI database, officials said.

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When informed of the cases last week, Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney and Manitowoc County District Attorney Jacalyn LaBre said they would seek to refile the warrants with nationwide extradition.

The FBI database is designed for serious crimes, and lists only a fraction of the active warrants in a given jurisdiction. Portage County, for example lists more than 1,000 warrants online but has only 32 warrants in the FBI database.

Judges, prosecutors determine warrant restrictions

Any limits on extradition are up to the judges who sign the arrest warrant, though they often rely on input from prosecutors.

That means two people committing the same crime in neighboring counties could face dramatically different scenarios. The charges would follow one suspect anywhere in the country, while the other would be home free after crossing state lines — his warrant invisible to officers who have contact with him.

“We have not adopted a policy that says this class of offense … would be extraditable out of state. It’s more left to the discretion of the judge,” said Waupaca County Judge Philip Kirk. “There will never be a homogenous system where every offense will be treated identically by every county in the state.”

Portage County lists 18 of 24 warrants as non-extraditable, including counts of sexual assault, cruelty toward a child, and assault — among cases for which an extradition status is listed. Marathon County often draws the line at regional extradition, saying it is willing to extradite only from surrounding states for 12 of its 37 warrants for which a status was listed.

On the other hand, authorities in Sheboygan and Fond du Lac counties list nationwide extradition for all but one of their warrants in the system.

Molepske said he brought up extradition limits at a recent meeting with Portage County judges and found them “sort of ambivalent to this issue, that it’s sort of whatever you want.”

Factors considered by Kirk in limiting a warrant include the seriousness of the crime, the cost of bringing a defendant back from out of state and input from the prosecutor, he said.

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Budgets, evidence a factor in extradition

Listing nationwide extradition on a warrant is no guarantee the fugitive will be returned to Wisconsin if caught, officials say.

“It doesn’t make sense to bring someone back if we can’t prove the case, and it’s costly to the county to have someone brought back,” said Toney, of Fond du Lac County. “We balance that with the need to hold individuals accountable.”

Fond du Lac County Sheriff Mick Fink said his agency budgets $6,000 per year for prisoner transports. Local departments can pick up prisoners themselves, but they often pay the U.S. Marshals Service or a third-party company to handle the transport.

One such contractor, Green Bay-based Wisconsin Lock and Load, charges $1 to $1.25 per mile for most transports, said Doug Thomas, director of extradition services. He said the company handles about 300 extraditions per year for more than 50 agencies in Wisconsin and neighboring states.

Paperwork can be a factor as well, since officials must obtain a court order and the signatures of both states’ governors to bring a prisoner across state lines unless the suspect waives extradition. Capt. Keith Deneys of the Brown County Sheriff’s Department said officials may also decline extradition if the suspect is facing a substantial prison term for a crime in another state.